Mina (44 page)

"Death
is coming soon enough," he responded. Hints of anguish in his tone
convinced her that he spoke the truth.

"Poor
mortal," she whispered, and stroked his cheek. The bed, as he had
expected, was luxuriously soft. As they fell together

onto it, she kissed him. He
found himself astonished at the intensity of his response.

He had made
love so many times before, but never to a woman as exotic as this. The countess
Karina was soft, voluptuous in a

youthful way he knew so well. Her scent was sweet-hyacinth and
narcissus. Yet there was no heat to
her body, no breath quickening at
his touch. Her breasts were flawless, but if he rested his head on them, he
would hear no heartbeat. She had died long ago, moving beyond any pleasure his
touch could give. The thought would not leave him, and he fought down a sudden
surge of revulsion, of fear.

"Do not
tempt me," she whispered. "Fear brings death. Love me instead."

Her eyes
were hungry for the life he offered her, as hungry he was for her eternal
existence. "I will," he whispered and kissed her

again.

She broke
away, moved her lips to his neck. "So soon?" he asked.

"Your
passion is my passion, my lord. I cannot respond, I can only echo."

Her teeth broke into his skin, sinking deeper. He felt the trickle
of blood, the pressure of her lips as she drank. Her hands that had moved so
languidly over his body became more insistent. Her legs brushed against the
outside of his thighs, drawing him into her.

"Wait,"
he said. "Let me give you pleasure."

"Pleasure!" Her laughter rang clear and tremulous as
crystal bells. "My lord, my only pleasure is that you love me." With
a growl of frustration, he did as she asked and found that he was indeed
ready. As his body moved above hers, her lips pressed against the wound. She
drank, trembling as he trembled, her cry just after his own.

When he lay
beside her with his eyes closed, trying to force his useless lung to breathe,
trying to still the frantic racing of his heart,

he felt her hand move down
his body once more. "You drank from Lady Mina, did you not?" she
asked, her voice light.

The act could hardly have been of any consequence. "I did. I
was already wounded. I hoped to tap the strength of her blood." "Of
his, you mean." She sounded weary, terribly sad. The weight beside him
vanished. When he opened his eyes, she was gone.

"Karina,
will you share?" he whispered to the emptiness around him.

He thought
he heard laughter, but he could be sure of nothing, not even that the laughter
was hers.

But there
was a presence lingering here; he sensed it hovering in the darkness, watching
him as the women had watched him

before they chose to appear.
"Karina?" he called softly. "Joanna?"

The door to
his room swung slowly inward. From higher up in the tower, he heard a woman
chanting, her lone voice rising and

falling, repeating a string of
words that included his name and another that he had come to know well.
"Dracula," she chanted.

Another
test, he thought, this time one of courage.

With a candelabrum held high to light his way, he climbed the
twisting stairs, listening to the chant grow louder. On the last turn, he saw
light as well, and he continued more quickly to the open doors above him and
into the room where torches shed a smoky light.

The narrow, vaulted room might have
been a chapel once. The stone slab at the far end might have been its altar.
But whatever function the room had once possessed had been twisted like the
castle itself from one of succor and protection to one of terror and death.

Symbols had been painted on the
walls around him-horned men, owls, snakes, bats and the dragon's tooth herald
he had seen on the shield in the room below. Interspersed with these were
pictures of Mina's face drawn hastily in coal and lampblack. Many of these had
been made on the stones themselves, others on scraps of paper and cloth.
Discarded near the stone was a woman's cape, thick and fleece-trimmed. He
could hardly know whose it was, yet he was somehow certain that it had belonged
to Mina and that what was happening here was to blame for all her fears.

Illona sat on the stone, her back to
him. Her hair fell in a dark cascade that covered her back and the stone
itself. Her bare legs were crossed, her bare arms upraised. The chant did not
waver, though Gance was certain that Illona had sensed his presence.

This was her sacred space,
her place of worship to the dark god that Mina said had given her the secret of
immortal life.

He halted
just inside the door and listened, hoping to make sense of her words, hearing
only the constant repetition of Dracula's

name and his own.

He took another step into the room,
and the door slammed shut behind him. The smoke from the torches seemed to
increase, filling the space until the pictures on the walls blurred and the
walls themselves vanished. Only Illona was visible, in her place on the altar,
her voice rising and falling, speaking his name.

Calling him.

The
thickness of the air made him fight for breath. The candelabrum seemed suddenly
so heavy. He set it down and walked

toward her. As he did, she
rose to her feet and turned to meet him with arms outstretched.

He saw that her body had been
painted with bold strokes of red and black. The nipples of her breasts were
circled with black, her pubic hair outlined in red. Red drops, undoubtedly
meant to be blood, covered her breasts, red trickles marked her thighs. Her expression
held a desire more intense than he had ever witnessed before. Her arms rose,
and he saw that they were covered with the same symbols that adorned the
walls. Multihued snakes circled her arms. Bats fluttered across the palms of
her hands; owls sat solemnly on their backs, their brown feathers painted down
the length of her tapering fingers.

Gance had always toyed with evil,
but he had never seen real evil firsthand. He did now, and his first thought
was to flee the room, the castle, the mountains, to put as much space between
himself and this creature as he could. He had begun to turn when her voice,
tender and serene, called his name. "Winston."

Flee, he
thought, yet he paused to look at her.

And saw the
wound she had made on her chest, real blood flowing this time, the offering to
him.

As he
paused, uncertain, she smiled. Her fangs had been painted as well, so that they
seemed to curve inward, mimicking the

dragon's teeth of her husband's
shield.

"Did
you think that she would be the one to turn you, Winston?" she asked.
"She is a child, a charming child, so charming indeed

that I have granted her wish.
Come to me, Gance. Come. Drink."

"Drink?"

"My
blood. Eternal blood. It flows in me through the power of the Lord of Darkness
and Life. Come now. The invitation will not

be given again."

Everything
Gance wanted was waiting at that altar. All he needed to do was walk forward
and take. He had come for this. He

would not permit his courage
to fail him now.

Yet as he moved toward her, his fear
intensified and his heart began to pound. He felt faint, and the room seemed to
grow suddenly smaller, with only swirling darkness for its walls. Her eyes
glowed red, providing the only light he could focus on. He moved toward them,
welcoming what she could give, fearing for the first time what he would become.

As he
approached, she held out her hands. "Winston Gordon, Lord Gance, do you
take freely the blood I offer you?" she

chanted.

The instinct
that had served him well through life was utterly overcome by the strongest
fear of all-the fear of death. "I do," he

responded. He took her hands
and reverently pressed his lips to her chest, tasting her essence, her power.

Bittersweet.
Cold. Lifeless.

Mina had told him that this was a passionate moment, one of
release. Gance did not feel the ecstasy. Instead it seemed that death moved
through him, slowly numbing his throat, his trunk, spiraling outward in his
limbs. His legs gave way, but Illona supported him, holding him as a mother
holds a child.

Still he
drank until he was incapable of swallowing any longer. She let his head drop
across her arms, then lifted his body and laid

him on the stone slab. Unable
to speak or to move, he heard the chant begin once more.

"Dracula
... Gance ... Dracula."

There was a
presence in the room, one he had sensed earlier in the hall of the castle. It
was not Joanna, not Karina, but

something far more powerful.

"My
lord," Illona chanted. "Take this vessel. Make it your own and return
to me."

"No!" Karina's voice screamed for him, petulant like a
denied child's. "You promised him to me. You promised!" Gance wanted
to say that it made no difference who turned him, so long as it happened. He
wanted to tell her that he would indeed make a place for her in his world. But
he could not speak. Could not even turn his head to look at her. Then she was
gone, her shriek of anguish

hanging in the dense air. The
chant continued. The presence grew stronger.

"Gance
. . . Dracula ... Gance . . ."

Something was moving in him, some
ancient power filling him. His limbs grew heavy, the pressure in his chest
increased. But as he looked up, past the whiteness of Illona's painted skin,
and through the dark cloud of her hair, he saw Karina slowly taking form, and
in her hand ...

The huge
blade fell, severing Illona's head from her body. A gush of blood covered
Gance's face, blinding him. He heard it drip

from the slab onto the floor,
heard a steady pounding of metal on wood.

"Cold,"
he mouthed, without breath.

Karina wiped the blood from his
face, blew breath into his body, trying to force him to live. "You
fool!" she said. "What use did she have for Gance the man? Though
she was far more powerful than he, she existed only for her husband. She needed
a creature who had shared his blood to bring him back. Mina would have served,
but a man would be so much better. She would have made you his vessel, your
memories and your fortune his to use, nothing more. His will is stronger than
mine. It may already be too late to save you."

She lifted
the huge blade from the floor and made a deep cut on her wrist. The blood
flowed down his throat once more, but it

did not have the numbing cold
of the other. "Drink!" she ordered. "Live long enough for me to
turn you."

He managed
to do as she asked. As his strength grew and he sucked hungrily at her wound,
she pressed her lips to his neck and

began the slow drain of life
from his body.

A sound he
had never consciously heard save in illness ended when his heart stopped
beating. Still not certain who would wake

in his shell, he died.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Soon after
Gance abandoned Mina, Van Helsing received a wire from Jonathan informing him
that Mina was returning to Castle

Dracula. Jonathan also wrote
he would post documents that would explain a great deal about her decision.

Van Helsing
had no patience for the mails. He wired back, asking for details immediately.

The following
day, a messenger from the telegraph office came to his door carrying a thick
envelope. "I am to tell you that this is

no message, but a damned
epistle," the man told him. "And a strange one at that."

Van Helsing
pulled out the pages. There, in its entirety, was the Countess Aliczni's story
and a longer communication from

Jonathan giving details of
Mina's apparent breakdown, Ujvari's death and the Sebescues' attack.

Once, Van Helsing and Ion Sebescue
had been allies in the struggle against the undead, and friends as well. Then
Sebescue had lost his daughter and a good part of his sanity to the creatures
in the Borgo. As soon as he had recovered from the shock of the girl's death,
he had taken his son to England to start a fresh life. Had the memory of the
creatures gnawed at Ion's reason even after so many years? Age could be to
blame, for Sebescue's mind had been slipping when Van Helsing saw him a decade
ago. As for the son, being raised with such bitterness could have accounted
for his own obsession. After all, it was the poor child's sister that the
vampires had consumed.

He raised
his glass of slivovitz in a silent toast to the tragic
family. As
he reached for the bottle to pour another shot, he realized

how much he had drunk.

"Fool!" he bellowed to
himself. "Fool! You have sat here waiting for something to happen. It was
exactly the laziness those monsters wanted." With a sweep of his arm, Van
Helsing pushed the glass and bottle off the table. The contents of both
dripped slowly across the already filthy floor, in a clear sweet puddle.

Van Helsing's clothes and books, and
the journals he had kept of his work, had long since been crated for shipping
back to Amsterdam. Yet he had remained here, doing none of the work he had
come for, indeed doing nothing at all in the last month but drinking. At
first, it had been in the company of others; lately, he drank alone, and the
little house that was supposed to have been a refuge had slowly turned into a
cell. There was nothing keeping him here, yet he could not leave.

As soon as
he'd finished the reading, Van Helsing wired a message to the hotel in Varna
asking Mina to come to him. Afterward,